OHIO: Supreme Court To Hear Appeal Of Teacher Fired For Teaching Creationism

The Ohio Supreme Court has agreed to hear the appeal of a public school teacher who claims he was wrongly terminated last year for teaching creationism and Christian doctrine.

John Freshwater claims his rights to free speech and academic freedom were violated when he was fired by the Mount Vernon school board in January 2011 following allegations that he failed to remove religious materials from his classroom and burned crosses on students’ arms during science experiments. “This Court must intervene if students and teachers in America's public schools are to remain free to engage in open, respectful dialogue about competing academic theories and their respective merits. Nowhere is such freedom more crucial than in a science classroom, where the asking and answering of questions is the very basis of the universally acknowledged “scientific method,” Freshwater’s attorney, R. Kelly Hamilton argued in his request for the court to hear the case.

The school board says Freshwater ignored their 2003 refusal to allow him to continue teaching "the alleged controversy surrounding evolution." Freshwater has become a folk hero to the far right. (Tipped by JMG reader Gus)